The well known and long existing aerosol valve mounting cup is generally a metal member having an outer circular channel which is placed over the circular bead of the aerosol can defining the opening into the aerosol can. The outer side of the channel terminating in a circular edge is commonly known as the skirt of the mounting cup and is crimped onto the can bead with a sealing medium (sleeve gasket, laminated gasket, cut gasket, coated gasket, etc.) positioned in between the channel and can bead.
The interior area of the mounting cup extends down into the can opening and has an upstanding pedestal portion into which is mounted and captured the aerosol valve itself. The dispensing valve stem in the case of a male valve extends upwardly through a central opening in the pedestal. A female valve uses the same basic mounting cup design.
Prior art mounting cups have traditionally been manufactured by forming metal blanks and performing a number of pressing/drawing operations on the metal blanks to arrive at the mounting cup shape. The skirt height of the mounting cup channel is viewed to be critical in relation to the can bead dimensions and also because of hopper feed bowls and other assembly equipment controlled by skirt height. In order to obtain the specified skirt height, mounting cups have been manufactured initially leaving excess metal material at the outer edge. The mounting cup is then passed through a late stage trimming station which cuts material from the extended outer edge to obtain the specified and critical skirt height in the finished mounting cup. Even under such circumstances, the outer edge/lip of the skirt will have an undesirable lack of evenness known as earring.
Given the hundreds of millions of mounting cups produced each year, it can easily be appreciated that there is a large excess material cost involved in the metal trimmed from the outer edge of each mounting cup. There is also the additional cost involved in requiring a trimming station in each production line.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to eliminate the need to trim the mounting cup edges and, thus, the need for the trimming station. It would also be desirable to minimize the presence of earring, or skirt height variation, in the final cup.